Martin Gilks, founder member and original drummer with "The Wonder Stuff", has died aged 41, following a tragic Motorbike accident.
Gilks died at St George's Hospital in London on Monday (April 3). He had suffered internal injuries following an accident the day before.

_________________"Listen to that noise! It's like Barry White eating wasps."

Martin Gilks, founder member and original drummer with "The Wonder Stuff", has died aged 41, following a tragic Motorbike accident. Gilks died at St George's Hospital in London on Monday (April 3). He had suffered internal injuries following an accident the day before.

Just thinking about this again. Totally gutted I am...their music was a soundtrack to my teenage years....ahh the memories.

_________________"Listen to that noise! It's like Barry White eating wasps."

June Pointer's Grammy-winning career began, literally, with a "Fairytale." Its ending was another story.

The singer, whose years of drug abuse prompted her expulsion from the family business that is the Pointer Sisters, died Tuesday at a Los Angeles hospital, the group's official Website said. The cause of death was cancer.

Pointer, the youngest of the performing siblings, and a key spark to their hits such as "I'm So Excited," "Neutron Dance," and "Jump (For My Love)," was 52.

According to a family statement, Pointer died "in the arms of her sisters, Ruth and Anita, and [with] her brothers, Aaron and Fritz, by her side."

Another sister, Bonnie, was said to have been with the ailing June "in spirit."

Last year, June Pointer was ordered to rehab after pleading guilty to crack cocaine possession. The felony charge stemmed from a 2004 arrest at Bonnie Pointer's Hollywood apartment.

"This isn't a Billie Holiday story," June Pointer told People in 2000 on the eve of a previous rehab stint for crack cocaine addiction. "I want a good ending."

In the beginning, June, Bonnie, Ruth and Anita Pointer were founding partners in an act that became one of the most successful musical groups of the 1970s and 1980s.

First a quartet, then a trio, the Pointer Sisters, an outgrowth of a duo started by June and Bonnie (who left to go solo in 1977), collected three Grammys, five gold albums and two multi-platinum albums in their first 20 years. Even more impressive was the range of their catalog; their songs covered pop, jazz, R&B, country--even Bruce Springsteen (a 1978 cover of his song, "Fire").

"The Pointer Sisters have always faced a crisis in their identity," the Washington Post observed in 1979. "They have dabbled in so many musical streams that, while everybody likes them, nobody knows exactly what to do with them."

Actually, fans had a pretty good idea what to do with them--they bought their music, starting with 1973's self-titled album, The Pointer Sisters. The collection spawned their first hit, "Yes We Can, Can." Other early successes included: "You Gotta Believe," and "Fairytale," a serious steel-guitar lament that earned the sisters from Oakland, California, a 1974 Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.

The versatile Pointers, who arrived on the scene dressed as if they'd stepped out the 1940s, achieved their greatest success as pop/dance divas. Their 1983 album, Break Out, made them first-generation MTV stars, scored them two Grammys and put them on the charts with "Jump (For My Love)," "Automatic" and "I'm So Excited." Another Break Out hit, "Neutron Dance," helped set the 1984 Eddie Murphy comedy, Beverly Hills Cop, in motion. And when "We Are the World" united music's biggest stars in 1985 for an all-star jam, the Pointer Sisters were on the invite list.

With the Pointer Sisters breaking out, June Pointer branched out with two solo albums, a 1985 Playboy pose and a 1987 helping hand to Bruce Willis--she dueted with the then-Moonlighting star on his singing debut (and swan song), The Return of Bruno.

In an 1987 Willis concert review, the New York Times likened a Pointer vocal on "Respect Yourself" to gospel great Mavis Staples, and said she helped reveal the show's ostensive star "as a poseur."

If success was a constant for Pointer, so were drugs. In her mid-40s, she told People they'd been with her "almost every day since I was 13." She used marijuana, cocaine and prescription pills before discovering the "fast, cheap high" of crack cocaine in the late 1990s.

While the Pointer Sisters' chart-topping days were behind them in the 1990s, their touring dates were not. By 2000, sisters Anita and Ruth moved to expel long-troubled June from the group. Three years later, Ruth's daughter, Issa, was called on to round out the trio. Said the group's official Website, tactfully: "June is no longer a member of the Pointer Sisters. She is pursuing a solo career."

Born Nov. 30, 1953, in Oakland, June Pointer married once and divorced. She had no children.

Alistair (I don't know his surname) died last week, about 27 years old.

Alistair was a very young, very sweet, very gay, very funny guy. I met him over one weekend last year at my sister-in-law's wedding in Venice, Italy. He was full of life, and we had lots of laughs with him over those three days.

He was brought up in a very strict religious household, and as a direct consequence suffered an unbelievable amount of guilt for the way he turned out. He killed himself last week. Ordinarily, the Christian religion has been a source of untold amusement to me, for which I thank it; but when its darker side shines through it can make you just plain mad. If you really are going on your Great Adventure, pal, I hope you meet others who are a lot more open-minded and a damn sight kinder.

Capricorn Records founder Phil Walden dies at 66; handled Otis Redding, Allman Brothers
DOUG GROSS
Associated Press
ATLANTA - Phil Walden, the Capricorn Records founder who launched the careers of Otis Redding and the Allman Brothers Band while helping pioneer the Southern rock sound of the 1970s, has died after a long battle with cancer, his family said Monday. He was 66.

Walden died at his home Sunday, said his daughter, Amantha Walden.

The Macon-based record label, founded in 1969, was influential in bringing together rock, country and blues artists who crafted a new style exemplified by groups like the Allmans, the Charlie Daniels Band and Wet Willie - other Capricorn acts discovered by Walden.

*"Phil was a visionary," said Chuck Leavell, who joined the Allman Brothers on keyboards in 1972 and now plays with the Rolling Stones. "He just had a great vision and a true, deep passion for the music."

Walden's long career began when he was a college student at Mercer University in Macon, where he helped break down racial barriers in the Deep South by booking predominantly black bands for white college and high school parties. He went on to manage rhythm and blues artists including Redding, Al Green, Percy Sledge and Sam and Dave.

*"He was a giant of Southern music," said author Mark Kemp, whose 2004 book "Dixie Lullaby: A Story of Music, Race and New Beginnings in a New South," chronicles, in part, Walden's early days at Capricorn. "He had a deep love for these people - for these musicians he worked with - and I think you could see it and you could hear it."

He saw Capricorn through financial ups and downs into the early 2000s, recording and promoting alternative rock acts like Cake, Widespread Panic and 311, who signed to Capricorn after he revived the label.

"Phil always knew how to recognize trends and he knew how to recognize talent within those trends," Leavell said.

Over the years, Walden endured and overcame some rocky times at Capricorn, including bankruptcy proceedings and a late '70s lawsuit by the Allmans, in which the courts ruled the band had been underpaid for album sales.

After selling the rights to Capricorn's contracts and music catalogue in 2000, Walden recently had been working with Velocette Records, a small, Atlanta-based independent label run largely by his children. Leavell said Walden spoke to him as recently as this year about wanting to again return to Macon and revive Capricorn as an outlet for young artists.

"My father was an amazing man; he fought a lot of battles and he won a lot and he lost some," said Amantha Walden. "He had a lot to pass down to us and we're just proud to be carrying on that legacy."

*Walden's two most famous artists, Redding and guitarist Duane Allman, both died tragically; Redding in a plane crash in 1967 at 26 and Allman in a motorcycle accident in 1971 at age 24.

Walden met Redding in Macon in the 1950s, when both were teenagers. Redding became a top rhythm and blues star in the 1960s and was on the brink of wider acclaim when he died.

He had recorded his "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" just days earlier. It became a smash hit in 1968.

"Starting with Otis has really been the story of my career in this industry," Walden told the AP in a 1997 interview. "I don't sing, I don't write, I don't perform, I don't produce. But I've had these incredible associations over some 40 years in this industry with some of the most incredibly talented people."

Redding and Walden's close friendship made them outcasts in the segregated South, Redding's widow, Zelma Redding, recalled in 1997. She said Walden's passion for black music made him "the little white boy who everybody was wanting to beat up on."

During the 1970s, Walden was an early backer of then-Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter's upstart run for the White House. He helped Carter financially, as did the Allmans and other Capricorn groups, who played benefit shows.

Carter said Monday in a statement that he and wife Rosalynn were sad to hear of Walden's death.

"Phil was one of the pre-eminent producers of great music in America," Carter said. "His many performing partners, including Otis Redding and the Allman Brothers, helped to put Macon and Georgia on the musical map of the world."

In recent years, Walden talked openly about his past struggles with drug and alcohol abuse. Friends and family say he had been sober since the 1990s. In 1997, Walden said, "I'm a big Episcopalian. After I get my cup of coffee in the morning, the first 40 minutes to an hour this is what I do: prayer. I'm searching my soul, trying to find out who the hell I am. Why am I here? What am I supposed to do?"

Funeral arrangements have been set for Wednesday at St. Philip's Cathedral in Atlanta.

Earl Woods, Tiger's father and best friend, dies at 74
BY CURTIS ZUPKE
The Orange County Register
SANTA ANA, Calif. - When his son was two years into his professional career and on the cusp of one of the greatest eras in professional golf history, Earl Woods wanted to set the record straight.

He had been portrayed as the ultimate stage father whose sole purpose seemed to be to spread the importance of Tiger Woods' significance through outlandish remarks that Tiger downplayed as praise from a proud parent.

So Earl Woods clarified his purpose.

"My whole life is about being positive," he wrote in his 1998 autobiography, "Playing Through: Straight Talk on Hard Work, Big Dreams and Adventures With Tiger."

"It's about dreaming, and then taking steps in your life to achieve those dreams. It is about overcoming obstacles and stereotypes, such as bigotry and prejudice. Life is about giving and about sharing and caring for others, standing up and being counted for what you believe in, being a spokesperson and a role model, and being an inspiration."

Woods, who died Wednesday morning in the family's Cypress home at 74 after a long bout with prostate cancer, will always be known for the profound impact he had on the world's most famous athlete.

"My dad was my best friend and greatest role model, and I will miss him deeply," said Tiger Woods, who announced the death in a statement on his Web site.

But Earl Woods will also be remembered for his impact on lives on and off the golf course.

When it became apparent early that his son was on a path that would extend beyond golf, Earl Woods reminded Tiger that he would be the first non-white superstar in the sport, which carried large responsibility. Earl conducted junior clinics with Tiger across the country in which the two espoused the values of hard work and decency.

They were the infant stages of what is now the Tiger Woods Foundation, an organization co-founded in 1996 by Earl with Tiger to help develop youth-based educational programs. Earl Woods was a driving force behind the foundation in the early years of Tiger's career and gave input even as health issues forced him into a less active role.

"Two things he always preached were caring and sharing," said Greg McLaughlin, who became foundation president in 1999. "In essence he thought there were a great many people who were in less fortunate circumstances, and his view was that if Tiger had the financial wherewithal as well as the time, he should be able to donate."

While the foundation was started largely through Tiger's earnings, Earl was instrumental in organizing the Target World Challenge, an annual "silly season" tournament that raises money for the organization.

"I see the foundation as a major catalyst for world reform on child abuse, spousal abuse, treatment of children, opportunities, jobs and education for children worldwide," Earl Woods told the Register in a 2000 interview. "I visualize this foundation directly working with government and being able to go to heads of states.

"The bypass vehicle is the ambassadorial status of Tiger. Someday he'll be an ambassador at large without portfolio, very much like Muhammad Ali, traveling to and talking to heads of state."

Today the foundation provides about 130 grants per year, worth approximately $1.5 million, mostly for youth development programs such as the Boys & Girls Club. It also established Start Something, a character education program that encourages kids ages 8-17 to identify a specific personal goal.

More than 2 million kids across the U.S. have enrolled in the program since its inception in 2000, according to McLaughlin.

The foundation unveiled its biggest project to date in January with the opening of the Tiger Woods Learning Center, a 35,000-square-foot educational facility at Dad Miller Golf Course in Anaheim aimed at providing after-school learning opportunities for under-served youth.

"He had a vision for where he wanted to see the foundation going for a long time ... and he was extremely instrumental in the first 10 years, which is the hardest time to get any new venture going right initially from the start," McLaughlin said.

"It has been a consistent problem in convincing people that the function and objective is not to produce a new generation of golfers," Earl Woods told the Register in 2004. "It's about personal growth. We want to develop role models for other kids."

A TEACHER OF THE GAME

Woods' path to golf started with humble beginnings. The youngest of six children, his parents died before he was 13. He gravitated to baseball, earned a scholarship to Kansas State as a catcher and became the first African-American to play in the Big Eight Conference.

Woods eschewed a potential baseball career to join the Army, where he was a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces and did two tours in Vietnam as a Green Beret. It was during this military stint that he met Lt. Col. Nguyen "Tiger" Phong of the South Vietnamese Army, a friend he admired so much that he promised to name a son after him.

Six years after he married Kultida Punsawad in 1969, the two had Eldrick "Tiger" Woods, raising him in a Cypress neighborhood near Navy Golf Course.

Although he did not take up the game until he was 42, Earl Woods was a firm believer that golf was a metaphor for life, that the values of etiquette, patience and integrity were essential to building character. He was famous for jingling keys or coughing in the middle of Tiger's swing to get Tiger used to distractions, but he was also willing to help junior players other than his son.

"He was a good teacher of the game," said Don Crosby, who coached Tiger at Western High and remembered Earl offering summer lessons to Tiger's teammates, as well as donating shoes to the team.

"If somebody needed help, he would give it."

Earl, who had spent years around the Southern California and national junior golf scene, collected his thoughts on getting children started in golf in his 1997 book, "Training Tiger: A Father's Guide To Raising A Winner In Both Golf And Life."

Mostly a golf preparation guide for parents, the book also addresses communicating effectively with children and developing the right attitude toward competition - emphasizing effort rather than results.

This was demonstrated at the Orange Bowl Junior Classic in Miami, when a young Tiger missed a short putt, sulked the rest of the round and lost the tournament. Earl reportedly gave Tiger a stern lecture that quitting was not acceptable.

From early on the two developed an unusually close, almost telepathic relationship.

The story that Earl often liked to tell was about when 12-year-old Tiger faced a difficult up-and-down in the Junior World Championships. Earl, out of view of Tiger, said to himself, "Don't do anything stupid."

Tiger pitched out successfully, made a putt to win, ran up to Earl and said, "I heard you, Daddy! I heard you!"

Last year, on Earl's 73rd birthday, when Tiger faced a crucial putt in the final round of the Ford Championship, he told reporters afterward that he could hear his father's voice tell him to "just lag it up there."

Woods won the tournament by a stroke.

Perhaps Earl's most profound coaching with his son occurred during Tiger's amateur career in the early 1990s. He counseled him before each round as Tiger became the youngest player ever to win the U.S. Junior Amateur, at 15, through his third consecutive U.S. Amateur title, at 20.

Tiger faced numerous comeback situations in match play during those tournaments and was guided by the now-famous words of Earl, who constantly implored him to "let the legend grow." Each of Tiger's three U.S. Amateur and three Junior Amateur victories ended with Tiger hugging Earl on the winning hole.

A teary-eyed Tiger famously hugged Earl at the 18th hole after the 1997 Masters, his first major title.

"That is what he believed in, he believed in what I could do, he believed in his son," Tiger Woods told the Register in 2001. "As I've gotten older, I don't have a family now, but I can understand being a proud parent, because I am a proud child."

THE LEGACY

Earl Woods curtailed his public appearances and became increasingly inaccessible as his health declined. He did an interview with the Boston Herald in 2004 but remained largely out of the public eye until his death.

Woods, a longtime smoker, was diagnosed with prostate cancer 1998, was treated with radiation and suffered a recurrence in 2004, when it spread throughout his body. Woods traveled to Augusta, Ga., for last year's Masters but did not make it to the course. He missed the tournament altogether for the first time last month.

His legacy will live through his son and the foundation, which issued a statement Wednesday.

"Earl was an advocate for young people through his work with the foundation who believed in the power of positive thinking," the statement said. "He dared to dream and encouraged all young people to do the same. As co-founder of the Tiger Woods Foundation, Earl ensured that future generations will have an opportunity to dream big dreams and see those dreams come true. He will be greatly missed."

The Learning Center dedication ceremony was attended by President Bill Clinton and California first lady Maria Shriver. Earl was not well enough to attend.

"He's proud," Tiger told reporters that day when he related the conversation he had with Earl the previous night. "He's really sad that he can't be here."

The subject of his father's condition had become an increasingly touchy subject. Tiger offered little insight into Earl's health after he spent most of the 2005 offseason in Southern California visiting him, but said of the time, "It meant the world to me. I mean, he's my dad and I love him to death."

Earl Woods touched on the bond he had with his son in "Playing Through":

"The heart that will beat forever in my soul belongs to my youngest son, Tiger," he wrote. "He is the product, symbol and extension of my beliefs. ... The fact that he is one of the world's greatest golfers is relevant only to the extent that the game provides him an international forum and platform to espouse our beliefs, which quite simply could bring families and nations together."

Karel Appel (April 25, 1921â€“May 3, 2006) was a Dutch painter, born in Amsterdam. He studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten there from 1940 to 1943 and started exhibiting in 1946. He was influenced by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Jean Dubuffet; he joined the Nederlandse Experimentele Groep and joined CoBrA in 1948 together with Corneille, Constant and Jan Nieuwenhuys. His 1949 fresco in the Amsterdam City Hall caused controversy and was covered up for ten years.

In 1950 he moved to Paris and then developed his international reputation travelling to Mexico, the USA, Yugoslavia and Brazil. He is particularly noted for his mural work and lived between New York and Florence. He died on the 3rd of May 2006 in ZÃ¼rich, where he was living at the time.

Alistair (I don't know his surname) died last week, about 27 years old.

Alistair was a very young, very sweet, very gay, very funny guy. I met him over one weekend last year at my sister-in-law's wedding in Venice, Italy. He was full of life, and we had lots of laughs with him over those three days.

He was brought up in a very strict religious household, and as a direct consequence suffered an unbelievable amount of guilt for the way he turned out. He killed himself last week. Ordinarily, the Christian religion has been a source of untold amusement to me, for which I thank it; but when its darker side shines through it can make you just plain mad. If you really are going on your Great Adventure, pal, I hope you meet others who are a lot more open-minded and a damn sight kinder.

Wow flatuus, that brought a tear to my eye when I read it. Im so sorry to hear of such a tragic loss.
I hate to hear of people suffering at the hands of evil bigots like that, especially when it's your own family, who are meant to love and nurture you. He should have been allowed to be who he was, not condemned for it. The catholic church has an awful lot to answer for.

_________________"Listen to that noise! It's like Barry White eating wasps."

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